Mere moments ago, a customer came into my store. As is my wont, I asked, “Is there anything I can help you find?”
She said “No, thanks. I’m just browsing.”
She then immediately walked up to my desk and stood there. I looked at her and she said, “Do you have any books of local ghost stories?”
She didn’t pause for a moment to think. She didn’t say, “Actually, I just thought of something.” She just said no, and then asked for help finding something.
This happens strangely frequently. It baffles me.
This happens oddly regularly.
never huff or snicker in disagreement with staff when they are just doing their job
I work at a great plant nursery:
Do not drag the large containers of plants , clearly labelled “Display, Not For Sale” up to the register and expect to purchase them. I’ll gently explain to you that, “See, these are our Display plants, grown out in order to give an example of a full size plant to all of our customers. You can purchase the same plant in a smaller size, and it will grow quickly. Let me show you where you can find it…”
Do Not then stomp your feet and put on a pouty face that you can’t have the big one now. What are you, five years old??? I’ve a mind to send you to your room, Missy!
This reminds me of an amusing experience…
There were about 5 minutes until 11pm - closing time at the sandwich shop. One of the sandwiches the place offered was a meatball sandwich. It was an art to be able to guess how many meatballs we would need hot going into the close. Any meatballs that were heated had to be either used or thrown away. On this particular evening we had just run out of meatballs before closing. Two high school girls came in, and one of them asked for a meatball. The exchange went something like this:
HS Girl: “Could I have a meatball?”
My coworker: “We’re out of meatballs and it’ll take about 8 minutes to heat some up and then another 4-5 minutes for the sandwich. How about a turkey or ham? I’ll throw in a free shake.”
HS Girl: “No. Meatball. After all, it is your job.” (The italics don’t accurately convey the condescension in her voice.)
Coworker: “Alright.”
Now, I have no problem with her really wanting a meatball. We were still open (at least at the time of the order) and it was on the menu. Her tone of voice was the issue.
So, he makes the sandwich and I ring them up. They go to sit down (!) and eat. After they get settled, my coworker walks over to them.
Coworker in an overly nice tone: “Excuse me ladies. I’m sorry, but it is after 11 o’clock and the store is closed. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. After all, it is my job.”
And so they went.
I just dealt with this one:
When you are quoted a hotel room rate, you are generally quoted “$XX.00 plus tax.” That means that the final amount you pay will have added taxes. (In our case, sales tax plus occupancy tax.) We are required by law to collect those taxes, unless you present proper documentation, or if you use a federal employee Visa card which can be automatically exempted from a portion of said taxes. (And even then, the hotel is not REQUIRED to exempt that tax, even if you’re the director of the CIA or the POTUS or any other high muckety-muck. We do it as a courtesy.)
When the hotel employee tells you that she must see a physical copy of your tax exemption documentation, that means that she must actually see a readable copy.
And finally, when you’ve finally presented that document, and said employee points out to you that your particular tax exempt form only relieves you of paying state of Florida taxes, and she cannot give you that same discount in the state of Georgia, please don’t add any extra bullshit to the mix. Telling me that yours is a federally issued exemption form is silly, when it plainly says at the very top of the form that it is issued pursuant to Florida statute chapter 212.
Really, if it’s that big a burden, and you have a legitimate tax write-off, you can simply subtract the taxes you pay from your individually-filed forms at the end of the month or quarter or year.
But I’ve been through a tax audit with another hotel. It’s not fun, especially when lax reading of forms leads to a $10,000 fine for my employer. The CFO used ugly words… lots of them!
A couple more frequent annoyances from guests:
If you’ve locked yourself out of your hotel room, hey, cool, I understand… Happens to the best of us. But before I give you a new room key, I need to see your identification. If your ID is in the room, and there is another person in the room, I’ll call them and get a confirmation that you are legit. (But why didn’t you just knock on the door?!) If that fails, then I will escort you to the room, use my master key, and expect you to produce your ID immediately. Yeah, there’s a reason I can’t just hand out room keys. Not even to you.
Similarly, if you call here and say “I’m Mr. Smith, can you tell me what room number Mrs. Smith is in?” my answer will always be no. I can connect you to that room without giving the room number (unless there’s a Do Not Disturb on that extension.) I can’t give you the room number. You may or may not be Mr. Smith, for one thing. For another, Mrs. Smith may be in that room with Mr. Jones. I don’t know. Or Mrs. Smith may have checked in with a new black eye, and she’s trying to get away from you. I’m not giving you the room number. Really, it’s a security issue. Think about it…
Finally, if you call here and just ask me to connect you with a room number, I’m going to ask for a name to match that number. There are any number of scams going around (most commonly, for someone to call a random room number, falsely identify himself as a front desk clerk, and ask for verification of credit card numbers.) I’m not gonna connect you. Again, a security issue…
Oh yeah: Back when I was a waitress/bartender, I usually got rid of the annoying flirters by giving out the local telephone number for Dial-a-Prayer. 
Does that even exist anymore? (But yeah, except for a few people who were actually personal friends, I didn’t enjoy the flirters. Even the least obnoxious ones were still a trial. And I’m a Huuuuugggge fan of flirting!)
What a strange woman. Tell me, does this kind of thing happen often?
I have actually done this.
When the clerk asks if I need help I automatically say that I don’t, just because 99% of the time I don’t. In a split second, sometimes while I’m saying that I don’t want help I realize that I actually do want help.
Usually I will say something like “Actually, you can help me” but I don’t think about it for more than a second.
If I smile, say please and thank you and leave a generous tip, please don’t assume I’m trying to get in your pants.
I think he is trying to differentiate banal banter from actually trying to pick up the bartendar/waitress and take them home for the night. I have bartenders and wait staff roll their eyes and tell me to fuck off all the time. But it is all in good fun and that is the reason I go there. Can we agree that there are some staff that enjoy a little banter back and forth? I can agree that there are servers who just want to get to the next table, serve the next drink, etc until it is time to count the tips and go home. I obviously can’t prove it to anyone on a message board but I can tell if my server wants to chatter and when they don’t. And when to shut the hell up because they are pretty busy.
I am of two minds on this. One, if I waited my time in line then I should be able to get the drink I want. But two, if you order up in front of me some concoction containing multiple colored liqueors that requires muddling and/or shaking and a sugar rimmed glass then, as someone upthread put it, I will be wishing your head to explode.
MeanOldLady, my response isn’t directly at you but to the attitude I see sometimes that a guy who is just being friendly and nice and tipping because he thinks it will help him “get some.” Maybe not as common as the douchebag trying to hit on the bartender but there are some of us out there.*
*Lucky for you ladies we all hang out here on The Dope!
This is really a common thing, especially if it is a new person coming to your business. The way I deal with it is to go up and orient them, and welcome them, but not indicate a hard selling situation. That’s what most people are trying to avoid, somebody trying to hard sell them. My biz gets accolades for NOT doing that, and that’s why they come back.
So, I pay attention to everyone, talk a bit, find out if they have immediate need, if not ,leave them alone, with the caveat that I’ll check back with them shortly to make sure they’re taken care of. It works, and people really appreciate not being overly hounded for sales when shopping.
I don’t think we’re suggesting nice = an attempt to get into the girl’s pants. I think most people who are polite smile, are courteous and tip well. We’re talking about flirting with people who are working, which is goddamn annoying. Unless you’re wonder boy here. Then everyone likes it.
Yeah. And the thing is, I did ask tdn to clarify–like, maybe what he’s doing is more like joking, not “flirting.” He said:
Maybe some of these women do enjoy it. But definitely quite a few don’t, as several dopers have spoken up here and said they always hated it when guys did this with them but had to put on a good face.
I’ve experienced fun welcome flirting, but if someone’s flirting with you at work, and they’re not being cute, or it’s innocuous but just annoying/dorky or the guy just turns you off for some reason, if you follow your gut and aren’t friendly, you’re going to get a talking to from your boss.
The thing people like tdn don’t seem to get is that nobody, but nobody, ever thinks their flirting is skeevy–all their flirting is the friendly, charming type that servers and clerks appreciate. And no matter how skeevy the customer is, you have to be pleasant and polite or you risk losing your job, so you really can’t take someone’s self-reporting about how much the waitstaff adores their flirting at face value.
I mean, on one end of the spectrum you have stuff that’s really not flirting because it’s obviously just horsing around, like my dad putting on a Pepe LePew voice and asking the waitress to run away to the Casbah with him. And on the other end you have the two fiftyish guys who used to come in to my very first job out of high school, the ones who visibly stared at my tits and asked me if I wanted to get married for about 10, no, lean way out of booth and leer at ass, 20 minutes. If you asked Dad or those two old pervs, they’d all three tell you it was harmless fun that everybody involved enjoyed. Without actually being there, you wouldn’t know where on the spectrum the situation actually fell.
As a general rule, if a server of your preferred sex is visibly younger than you, don’t say anything that you wouldn’t say to a member of your non-preferred sex. No matter how harmless, fun and charming you think you are, it’s quite likely the server is in the kitchen talking about the old skeeve at table 4.
Maybe I’m just irritable, but this would bother me too. Not nearly as much as lechers ogling my cleavage, of course, but I would release an internal sigh and think, “Cut the shit, already, and just tell me what you want.” Women don’t do this. Perhaps because they realize I have work to do? Just let me do my job, and stop thinking you’re the one guy who isn’t irritating, and you’re the one guy who has some stupid, funny shit to say that I haven’t heard eight times already this morning. Not all flirting with someone who is trying to work is created equal, but it is all created annoying.
Hell, this happens to me pretty much every day that I work. I think the “no, I’m just looking” line is pretty much an automatic response for people (as it is for myself) when approached by store clerks; I honestly think people don’t realize they’ve said it. Clerk approaches, automatic “nothanksjustlooking” response, and then it registers in their brain “hey, I need help, and there’s this guy standing right here looking at me, might as well ask him!”
Grrr…seriously! This absolutely burns my bagel to no end. Who the f*#k uses checks anymore, anyways? Debit cards? Heard of 'em?
Yeah, it’s not the worst thing ever but it’s pretty cheesy/eye roll inducing. But you can’t tell the customer he’s being a big ham because bye bye tip.
I don’t get why customers can’t just treat waitresses as they would their waiters. You’re probably not the lone guy who’s so funny/hot you’re going to make her day.
And for those guys saying that you can tell from her body language/laughter she’s into you, are the ladies at a strip club also into you?
I don’t know, tdn. You don’t know me from a hole in the ground but a bit you said last year really stuck in my head:
Some middle aged guy gives them a quarter and two cute young women would have given you “anything”? Makes me wonder if your social radar is quite as good as you think. Just my humble observation, hope you don’t take offense.